As a result, wholesale prices have jumped nearly 73 cents a gallon over the last week. Experts predict that stations are about to pass on that cost to California drivers this week, and there's nothing drivers can do about it.

According to fuel analysts, we could see a jump of 10 to 30 cents a gallon in a matter of days.

What's causing this price spike? The problem is low production blamed on several oil refinery outages due to the extreme heat and continuing problems from an oil refinery fire in Northern California this summer.